Blue Microphones Yeti Pro review

It's big and it's bad, but is Blue's latest microphone abominable?

For

Clean, warm sound

Great low-latency monitoring

More flexible than the first one

Against

Not cheap if you don't need XLR

There's no debate, really: the original Yeti, unleashed last year, is the best USB microphone going. We gave it a well-deserved five star review and since then it's dropped to an average price of under £100.For such an accomplished mic, that's frankly astonishing.

The Blue Microphones Yeti Professional version doesn't actually mess with the formula at all.

It has the same proprietary three capsule sensor with on-board gain control. It has the same quartet of operating modes, making it suitable for close-range, conferencing, stereo or mono recording.

It carries the same old-school looks, this time with a matte black finish to the body. And it's equipped with the same two-way USB interface which features the same latency-free headphone/Mac output monitoring.

It's still as compatible and straightforward as its older sibling where it counts. The big change that's been made in the transition from standard to professional is the addition of a stereo XLR jack, which means the Yeti Pro can be hooked up to any industry-standard mixing console and used as a standard condenser mic.

This really solves the big deficiency of the original model; attempting to run a jack through its headphone monitoring port and hook it up to a desk was awkward at best.

Here you run the included Stereo XLR to 2x XLR cable directly into two mono tracks, switch on phantom power, and you're done.

But that luxury comes at a price. Shop around and you might find the Yeti Pro for £210, over twice the price of the original, which stings a bit for the addition of a single feature.

Podcasters who have made the jump to a mixing desk will rejoice at the flexibility on offer: the consistency afforded by the ability to take the same mic you use in the studio out on the road is not to be sniffed at. But that XLR socket is going to be wasted on most of us.

It's the one thing that was missing from the original; now all that's missing is a drop to a reasonable price.